Yik Yak

Anonymous location-based social network

Description

Yik Yak was a social app for iOS and Android that allowed users to create and share posts anonymously with anyone who was within a 5-mile radius. Users within the range could also view, Upvote or Downvote content anonymously. The app was particularly trending in schools and campuses, often used for gossiping and sharing last-minute events or updates. Posts on the app were called ‘Yaks’, and users had a ‘Yakarma’- a score which measured their popularity based on the number of likes and dislikes that their posts received. Post that received five downvotes were deleted from the feed. Photos, after being moderated, could also be shared.

Stats

Category

Social Media

Country

United States

Started

In 2013

Closed

By 2017

Number of Founders

Three

Name of Founders

Brooks Buffington, Tyler Droll, Will Jamieson

Number of Employees

Between 11 And 50

Number of Funding Rounds

3

Total Funding Amount

$73.5M

Number of Investors

11

Precise Cause of Failure

Legal Challenges

Business Outcome

Shut Down

Cause of Failure

One of the main reasons
that pushed the founders of Yik Yak to discontinue the application seems to be
the frequent complaints about cyberbullying and harassment perpetrated through
the app. Parents, feminist groups, and victims of harassments, in particular,
requested schools and campuses to block the app.

Eventually, Yik Yak
developers used geo-fences to block the use of the app in schools and high
schools. Moreover, in an attempt to reduce the feeling of anonymity and
increase accountability for the posts shared, the app tried to enforce a handle
with which to identify its users. This new update only caused the number of
users to decrease, and the feature was made optional.

Some argued that any
platform that grants anonymity could potentially be at risk of becoming a hub
for hate speech and harassment, and yet few of them actually see the prevalence
of that type of behavior. The issue with Yik Yak seemed to be the fact that it
was a social app based on proximity.
This means that victims of any type of attack had the certainty that whoever
wrote the threatening posts was physically close to them, increasing their
anxiety and feeling of endangerment.

Another concern emerged
when a team of researchers demonstrated that a Yik Yak user could be identified
if it shared the same WiFi network of the potential attacker.

The attempted enforcement
of handles, the removal of certain features, the wide coverage of news media of
cyberbullying that took place through the app, security concerns, and the fact
that the app stopped being relevant outside of campuses, all these factors
slowly led to the decline in the use of the application and its inevitable shut
down.

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Yik Yak was a social app for iOS and Android that allowed users to create and share posts anonymously with anyone who was within a 5-mile radius. Users within the range could also view, Upvote or Downvote content anonymously. The app was particularly trending in schools and campuses, often used for gossiping and sharing last-minute events or updates. Posts on the app were called ‘Yaks’, and users had a ‘Yakarma’- a score which measured their popularity based on the number of likes and dislikes that their posts received. Post that received five downvotes were deleted from the feed. Photos, after being moderated, could also be shared.

Cause of Failure

One of the main reasons
that pushed the founders of Yik Yak to discontinue the application seems to be
the frequent complaints about cyberbullying and harassment perpetrated through
the app. Parents, feminist groups, and victims of harassments, in particular,
requested schools and campuses to block the app.

Eventually, Yik Yak
developers used geo-fences to block the use of the app in schools and high
schools. Moreover, in an attempt to reduce the feeling of anonymity and
increase accountability for the posts shared, the app tried to enforce a handle
with which to identify its users. This new update only caused the number of
users to decrease, and the feature was made optional.

Some argued that any
platform that grants anonymity could potentially be at risk of becoming a hub
for hate speech and harassment, and yet few of them actually see the prevalence
of that type of behavior. The issue with Yik Yak seemed to be the fact that it
was a social app based on proximity.
This means that victims of any type of attack had the certainty that whoever
wrote the threatening posts was physically close to them, increasing their
anxiety and feeling of endangerment.

Another concern emerged
when a team of researchers demonstrated that a Yik Yak user could be identified
if it shared the same WiFi network of the potential attacker.

The attempted enforcement
of handles, the removal of certain features, the wide coverage of news media of
cyberbullying that took place through the app, security concerns, and the fact
that the app stopped being relevant outside of campuses, all these factors
slowly led to the decline in the use of the application and its inevitable shut
down.